WTYTIAAN Chapter 204

Chapter 204

The Banot Mountains entered winter as early as October. The temperature kept dropping, and the first snow arrived in early November.

Snowflakes, like countless light feathers, scattered and fell from the gray sky, swirling and dancing in the air, sometimes blown by the wind into small arcs, eventually covering the Banot Mountains with a thin layer of snowy clothing.

The main fighting forces of both empires hadn’t yet reached the front lines, but the border garrisons had already engaged in several small-scale skirmishes. With the intervention of the players, several of these skirmishes escalated into small battlefields.

But if you were to ask who suffered the most losses?

It wasn’t the civilians, nor the armies of the two countries, but the players.

The players seemed to genuinely treat this battle as a faction war. Every day they logged on, they racked their brains about how to mess with the enemy country. The two-day resurrection cooldown after death couldn’t stop their desire to cause trouble. Even if their experience points were depleted and all their gold coins were used to repair weapons, they still had to cause trouble.

It was as if causing trouble was written into their DNA.

Of course, Yan Yunqing contributed a lot to this, issuing many quests, and accidentally leveling himself up to level eighty.

What an overpowered life.

*

“Grandpa, I’m going out!” A clear voice rang out, and little Yuri hurried out the door carrying a cloth bag.

Little Yuri wasn’t very tall, and the way she ran while carrying the cloth bag looked like a hardworking little radish, sprinting with her short legs.

Residents passing by would greet little Yuri.

“Little Yuri, good morning. Running errands for Grandpa again?”

“Yes, Aunt Ella.”

“Little Yuri, is your grandpa free? I have a hoe that’s broken, can your grandpa fix it?”

“Yes, Uncle Kurt. My grandpa is home all day today, you can bring the hoe to my house!”

“Little Yuri…”

Accompanied by one “Little Yuri” after another, the small voice ran to the entrance of the military camp against the wind and snow.

A tall, sturdy soldier was already waiting there. Seeing little Yuri running over, he pulled up the visor of his helmet and greeted the panting little Yuri, “Little Yuri.”

“Good morning, Brother Haven.” Little Yuri raised a bright smile, so warm in this cold, sunless weather. She handed her cloth bag to the soldier in front of her, “This is your stuff, Brother Haven.”

The soldier didn’t open the cloth bag to check. He directly took out a silver coin from his pocket and placed it in little Yuri’s hand, “Thank you for your trouble.”

As the war unfolded, the two armies fought several times, surprisingly evenly matched. While the intervention of players was a factor, the Romunike side also discovered a very important point: the Bato Vita side was very serious about this war, unlike what they initially thought was a small skirmish—after all, starting a war in the cold winter was disadvantageous to soldiers on either side and would only increase casualties.

The Bato Vita army was well-equipped, with a large sum of money supporting the war.

Although they had long known that Bato Vita’s reason for starting the war was that the sixth prince, Fifi, died in Romunike, and the Bato Royal Family believed that the Romu Royal Family was secretly responsible, which was why they declared war without warning. It just so happened that Prince Fifi was the youngest son of the Augreir queen, and the Augreir Family would definitely invest money to support the war.

However, this sum of money still exceeded the expectations of the Romunike’s main battle general, resulting in a larger gap in equipment between the two sides.

The Romunike faction could only use most of its resources on military equipment to avoid excessive casualties due to the large equipment gap.

Therefore, some items that didn’t affect the battlefield but had a greater impact on the personal living environment of the soldiers were not provided by the army, because they really didn’t have the money.

Like leather gloves and leather knee pads.

It would have been fine normally, but now it was the coldest winter in Banot, and the snow came early this year, making people shiver.

Little Yuri took this opportunity to sell cheap and warm small items to the army. Along with little Yuri and old Jason, there was also the hunter Rosen, who even though he was blind and limping, still had the experience of the number one hunter in Sunset Village. Coming to Loreus City in the hilly mountains was like a fish in water for him. Everywhere was filled with small prey that he could easily catch.

As early as summer, Rosen had already accumulated a large batch of furs, originally intending to transport them elsewhere to sell (the locals knew a little bit about hunting and weren’t lacking in furs). Before he had time to discuss this matter with the merchants, the war between the two countries suddenly broke out.

The furs were just stockpiled in his hands. Fortunately, this thing didn’t have too much of a time limit. As long as it was prevented from becoming damp, moldy, or gnawed on by squeaky mice, it could be stored all the time, waiting for a good time to sell.

However, little Yuri was very smart and keen at a young age. After observing several times and discovering that the troops stationed outside the city lacked small items for warmth, she tried to establish a relationship with the soldiers in the military camp and started a business selling leather gloves and leather knee pads.

Rosen and old Jason were both very skilled people. The leather gloves they made were solid, warm, and tightly stitched. The most important thing was that the price was very affordable. In a situation where the prices of everything were rising due to the war, the price of the leather gloves they sold was actually a little less than usual. Even some soldiers in the army could afford a whole set at their own expense.

So little Yuri’s business started to flourish.

“In two days, bring me a third pair of gloves.” The soldier tucked the gloves back into his pocket, “My brothers in the entire company want them too, please.”

“Hey, hey, me too, me too, I want one too…” Several soldiers popped up from nowhere, waving at little Yuri, stating their needs.

Little Yuri skillfully took out a few pieces of rough paper from her pocket and wrote and drew on the paper with charcoal, recording the soldiers’ needs.

She was literate. To be precise, Rosen and old Jason both knew a little bit of writing and taught it to little Yuri. Of course, it was only some simple common language, different from the characters used in magical spells.

“Okay, then I’ll be here at the same time the day after tomorrow! I’ll be here on time!” Little Yuri recorded all the needs, then properly put away the rough paper, smiled at these soldiers, and seemed to suddenly remember something. Little Yuri looked around, “Um, do you know Brother Browning? He ordered a hat from me last time and hasn’t picked it up yet.”

This sentence seemed to press the pause button, making the originally somewhat lively entrance of the military camp quiet down.

Little Yuri was stunned, looked up at the expressions of the soldiers, and seemed to understand something in her heart.

“He… sacrificed in the conflict the day before yesterday.”

“Ah… is that so?” Little Yuri lowered her head slightly, “Um… I was still thinking… I’m sorry, but do you know if Brother Browning has any family? He already paid for the hat he ordered last time, maybe I can send this thing to them?”

“No, Browning was an orphan…”

“…”

After saying a few more words to the soldiers, little Yuri took back her cloth bag, checked her things, especially the silver coins she received today, and waved goodbye to the soldiers in the military camp.

Little Yuri’s mood was a little low on the way back.

Death is the most insignificant thing in war. What’s even more terrifying is that once they lose the war, their homeland will be invaded, destroyed, and trampled on at will by the enemy.

Little Yuri wasn’t a child born and raised in Loreus City. In fact, she was from the Bato Vita Empire, a Bato person, a Bato child.

Due to some potential dangers, the village chief of Sunset Village, where little Yuri lived, after a long period of thought, finally decided to lead the clansmen to leave this place, escape from here, and go to a remote, backward place that would not be easily found and retaliated against by the Bato Royal Family.

And old Jason chose to take little Yuri across the border and come to Loreus City, the border city of Romunike. The hunter Rosen also came along.

This was not only to protect themselves, but also to protect the others in the village. If the Bato Royal Family found out about what happened many years ago, their first target would definitely be Kalena’s closest people.

After all, if Fifi’s death was carefully investigated, it could be deduced that someone was avenging Kalena. After all, Yan Yunqing had killed a city lord’s son before this. If the royal family wanted to find the person who killed Fifi, starting with Kalena’s relatives and friends would definitely be the easiest and most convenient way.

Rosen was Kalena’s only remaining relative in the world, and old Jason was the father of Kalena’s childhood sweetheart boyfriend. They were the people most likely to be targeted by the Bato Royal Family.

Old Jason had been in contact with all kinds of merchants and mercenary adventurers for many years, and knew that as long as he was within Bato Vita, he could be found by the royal family at any time. So he took little Yuri across the border and chose the Romunike Empire.

To be honest, this was not an easy decision. Crossing the border and defecting to the Romunike Empire was tantamount to treason in a sense.

He had raised a knight son who had sworn allegiance to Bato Vita. Old Jason himself was also a person with a strong sense of belonging to Bato Vita. Even though his son was murdered by the prince, decades of loyalty to the country was difficult to change.

If it weren’t for little Yuri by his side, old Jason might have accompanied his son and slept together in the land where they were born and raised after learning the truth about his son’s death.

But Yuri was so young, she had a long and brilliant life ahead of her, she even had magical talent, her future was bright.

Old Jason couldn’t convince himself to stay with little Yuri, allowing little Yuri to face the upcoming death.

Fortunately… fortunately the people of Loreus City were very friendly. They never revealed their origins, but were still treated kindly by the people of Loreus City.

This world isn’t that bad, there are still many good people in the world.

Old Jason raised his head, looked at the gray sky through his cloudy eyes, and snowflakes scattered and fell, some of them landing on his eyelashes, and being melted by body temperature after a long time, wetting the corners of his eyes.

Another cloudy day.

Why doesn’t the sun appear yet?

“Grandpa, I’m back!”

Little Yuri’s voice rang out outside the door, and old Jason instantly softened his hard eyebrows and looked at the little figure running into the yard and standing under the eaves, constantly patting the snowflakes off her body.

“Come into the house and warm up.”

“I know, Grandpa, I just received a few more orders. We’re one step closer to buying that shop on West Street!”

*

Yan Yunqing, using the identity of [Nolan], went to Bato Vita’s border city, Castella City, and skillfully began to set up a stall.

After a few days of harvesting players, all the players more or less knew that a mysterious traveling merchant NPC would randomly appear at a certain time in the main cities of the two major factions. The things in his trading column were strange and bizarre. Not only could you buy props, but you could even buy skills, dungeon clues, and so on.

In addition to the fact that the mysterious traveling merchant would issue a propaganda mission on the first day, as long as you bought something from him, he would randomly issue some small missions, all of which were experience-rich missions. In addition, the props he sold earned the traveling merchant NPC the affectionate nickname of “Profiteer Daddy” from the players.

Profiteer naturally referred to the fact that everything in his trading column was priced in gold coins, and ordinary, more laid-back players simply couldn’t afford anything in his trading column. Daddy, of course, was because the mission experience he gave was too refreshing, and with a little luck, a mission could level you up twice.

This return journey’s experience was difficult to obtain, and the missions issued by Daddy were simple and had a lot of experience. If he wasn’t the daddy, who was?

Yan Yunqing also saw his nickname on the forum and silently dug out a temple with his toes.

As soon as the traveling merchant’s stall was set up, players skillfully surrounded it. They even caught a bug, a group of people pooling together the gold coins for the cheapest item in the traveling merchant’s trading column, and then waiting for the traveling merchant’s mission to be released. They would then share the mission and complete it together, so that they could split the mission experience equally, achieve common prosperity, and grow together.

It was really too mainstream! Reward!

Yan Yunqing was a little dumbfounded after discovering the bug caught by the players, but he didn’t interfere much with the player’s bug-catching behavior. Anyway, the faster the players completed the missions he issued, the better. He could also get experience after the players completed the missions. Why not issue more missions?

He even secretly increased the experience of the mission a little when a large number of mission groups came.

This way, the experience divided by the players would be more, and the experience he got would also increase.

It was simply a win-win situation.

He also harvested the players, he won twice.

After skillfully issuing a mission to explore the surrounding area to the last player in front of the stall, and having harvested so many times, the players’ small vaults were almost harvested by him. Now, what he mainly harvested were skill points.

It was just that the players were also lacking in this thing. There were too few ways to obtain skill points. Recently, Yan Yunqing’s ‘business’ had become much quieter, and Yan Yunqing was also happy to be idle.

He casually opened the forum, flipping through the latest posts, while paying attention to the people passing by on the street.

Yan Yunqing was attracted by an abstract post. He didn’t know that the player had dug out the ‘untold history’ of the past discord between Divick and Beros, and wrote a bloody romance novel based on these untold histories—why a romance novel? Because Beros was identified as a woman.

The records of Beros were much less than that of the Dragon Prince Divick. The untold history’s description of Beros was only that he was a beastman with succubus blood. Even the creation of the Scarlet Mist organization didn’t have a single detailed piece of gossip. It only said that Beros and the first mercenary group chief of the initial mercenary group before the establishment of the Scarlet Mist caught each other’s eye, and then established the Scarlet Mist of ‘robbing the rich and helping the poor’.

No one had ever accurately said whether Beros was a man or a woman. Because of various rumors, coupled with the special setting of the succubus bloodline, most people currently believed that Beros was a she-wolf… oh no, a female beastman.

This was why players on the forum were constantly spreading rumors that Beros and Divick were happy enemies, a match made in heaven.

Yan Yunqing looked at the bloody romance novel in the forum, and didn’t know why Sylph’s figure appeared in it. Oh, Sylph was their white moonlight, but Sylph didn’t like anyone. He was sexually indifferent, so his two suitors came together and started a love-hate drama.

This bloody romance novel also involved complex elements, gathering trendy elements such as danmei, romance, lily, 4i, etc., piecing together a bloody dog-blooded fan fiction.

Yan Yunqing couldn’t describe it in words.

And wanted to laugh a little.

Just as Yan Yunqing was laughing non-stop, a girl appeared in front of his stall. The girl wore a light veil that covered her face, hiding her appearance behind a hazy veil. There was also a maid dressed person holding a large umbrella for her, preventing snowflakes from falling on her and wetting her hem.

Yan Yunqing stopped continuing to read the bloody romance novel, raised his head and looked at the girl in front of him. After recognizing who the other party was, Yan Yunqing was slightly stunned.

“Why are you here?”

The girl quietly lifted a corner of the veil, revealing a face that had faded some of its childishness. She blinked at Yan Yunqing and mouthed softly: “To find you—” Teacher.

That’s right, the person standing in front of Yan Yunqing at this moment was his only student, Alice.

The eleventh princess of Bato Vita, currently thirteen years old, almost fourteen.

In this world, she was considered a little adult. Compared to when they first met, she was indeed much more mature. Girls change eighteen times as they grow, a year ago she was still a child, now she was a graceful young woman.

Her facial features have grown a lot.

Yan Yunqing glanced around. Although there were no players in front of his stall, there were still many players on the surrounding streets. Alice’s appearance and her staying in front of him had already attracted the attention of many players. This was obviously not a good place to talk.

He thought about it and simply put away the stall, “Let’s go, let’s find a quiet place to talk.”

Alice put down the light veil that covered her face again. Only then did Yan Yunqing realize that this light veil was also a magical item. Like his stealth magic robe, it had the effect of covering up the appearance of the face.

As long as Alice didn’t take the initiative to lift the veil, outsiders couldn’t see her appearance clearly. Although they could vaguely see traces of some facial features, they couldn’t form a complete impression.

If Yan Yunqing hadn’t known Alice and had the NPC identification above Alice’s head to assist him, even he, an level eighty powerhouse, couldn’t see the face under the veil.

This was already a prop that could affect cognition, even more precious than his stealth magic robe. It seemed that Alice had gradually stepped into a bit of the power center of Bato Vita in a subtle way. She could get her hands on such good things.

Yan Yunqing had to admit that Alice was a very talented person. He just used his past experience and the vision of standing on the shoulders of giants to give her a little guidance, and Alice could achieve this level.

Alice was a natural leader.

If she could really succeed in ascending to the throne and take control of Bato Vita, perhaps this decaying country controlled by the Augreir Family would usher in new vitality.

“Get on my carriage.” Alice gestured for Yan Yunqing to look towards the street. An ordinary carriage was parked there.

She lifted her skirt and, with the help of the maid next to her, took the lead in boarding the carriage. Yan Yunqing followed closely. He refused the maid’s help and also lifted his hem—the hem of the magic robe—and boarded the carriage.

Alice couldn’t help but laugh when she saw this in the carriage. She always felt like the teacher was also wearing a skirt.

Yan Yunqing glanced at Alice silently, but because of the effect of the stealth magic robe, Alice didn’t notice Yan Yunqing’s glare at all.

The furnishings in the carriage were also very simple. Only the car seat was thickened and covered with several layers of blankets to make the occupants more comfortable. There was no extra design, and even the space was a bit small.

With Alice and Yan Yunqing, the space in this carriage seemed a bit crowded.

Of course, this may also be due to the visual impact caused by Alice’s wide skirt.

The door of the carriage was closed, and the maid didn’t come in with them. Instead, she sat outside and began to drive the carriage. She even doubled as a coachman, a multi-functional maid.

Isolating the outside world, Yan Yunqing simply took off his hood and met Alice’s curious eyes. She also took off the veil.

“What? After not seeing each other for a few months, you don’t recognize me anymore?” Yan Yunqing joked.

Alice tapped her chin with her finger, “Indeed a bit. I feel like the teacher’s temperament looks a bit more mysterious.”

“Mysterious? What kind of adjective is that…”

Yan Yunqing felt that this word was a bit strange, but it might be because he had recently broken through level eighty.

Yan Yunqing didn’t get entangled in such trivial matters. He looked at Alice, “So, why are you here to find me today?”

“Demetrius is gone.” Alice went straight to the point, “He asked for a few days off last month, saying he was going home, but after the vacation, he never returned to the academy to cancel his leave. I checked and found that Demetrius was gone.”

Yan Yunqing was stunned and looked reflexively in the direction of the coachman through the door, where the maid was driving the car.

Alice knew what Yan Yunqing was thinking, she shook her head, “It’s okay, the carriage is equipped with a soundproof formation, and Gidi is a trustworthy person, she won’t betray me.”

When Yan Yunqing heard Alice say this, he didn’t say anything, but focused his attention on what Alice said.

“Demetrius is missing?”

Demetrius, when Yan Yunqing used Xavier’s identity to enter Sigret Academy, he lived in the same dormitory as him.

The other party was a genius magician. As soon as he entered Sigret Academy, he became the chief of the first grade. He was usually silent and didn’t like to communicate with people. He was a classic dark, socially awkward little mushroom.

This wasn’t the reason why Yan Yunqing would pay extra attention to the other party. The reason why Yan Yunqing would have Alice pay attention to Demetrius’s movements was because the only time he encountered the Sigret Academy student kidnapping incident during his short six months of schooling at the academy.

That was the first time he, Yan Yunqing, learned the name of the Eternal God Cult and knew that this cult was plotting some unknown evil deeds in the name of the Demon King.

And in Buma City outside Sigret Academy, he encountered another Demetrius who had the same NPC identification as Demetrius, but had a different appearance, and was closely related to the Eternal God Cult.

That person wearing the same mask as the Eternal God Cult called ‘Demetrius’—Young Master.

Yan Yunqing believed that the two Demetriuses must have some kind of connection. After encountering his companion being kidnapped during external training, he once followed the other party, but unfortunately lost track of him that time. He had to ask the Elf Elder and General Sawyer for help to find the underground altar of the Eternal God Cult and rescue his companion and the missing students.

Later, the early release of the internal beta, the establishment of the novice village, the deployment of ‘Flame’ personnel, etc., distracted some of Yan Yunqing’s attention, but because he and Demetrius were roommates, he could still easily obtain his itinerary—without any flaws.

It seemed that Demetrius was just an ordinary genius magician.